


Dressed in a Father's Clothing

by TheColorBlue



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 21:34:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheColorBlue/pseuds/TheColorBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Booker DeWitt is both a thug and a father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dressed in a Father's Clothing

Booker DeWitt has done things that no man should ever do to another. When he was called a brute, or a thug, the description was an understatement, rather than apt. As a private investigator, he was less inclined to deal in extreme violence, but there was still the night that he came home late with blood drying sticky on his face and on his shirt, most of it another man’s, and he was washing at the kitchen sink when he heard a small sound behind him, and the closing of a creaky bedroom door. Anna was four-years-old. Children were not stupid. Booker remembered being a child, and not being stupid, and little Anna was smarter than most. Booker wrung pinkish water from his shirt down the drain, put it aside, and then covered his face with his hands, yet careful of still tender bruises. Anna was four-years-old, and had a colored nanny that minded her on the days that Booker had to be out, and who tucked her into bed before retiring for the evening to the flat the floor below. 

Anna was four-years-old and Booker was twenty-three. In the eyes of a child, the gap was a huge one, but Booker had no illusions about the kind of man he was. Sometimes he wondered what she saw when he came through the door, looking like this. Her father was a monster wearing men’s clothing, and it didn’t matter how quickly he tried to wash up afterwards, you could still smell the blood. 

Booker’s mouth still stung from a split lip, or else he would have lit himself a cigarette and collapsed with it at the kitchen table. He wanted a drink, but he’d forced himself to throw out all the liquor in the flat a year ago. He wanted…

There was still cold coffee in the kettle on the gas stove, and Booker drank the bitter stuff down cold out of a tin cup. Then he went to his own bedroom, stripped off his clothes, and then lay down in the bed. 

The day had been Saturday. Tomorrow would be Sunday. Booker always tried to take the Sunday to spend with Anna. 

\--

Anna was four-years-old, and she lived on picture books. She had two books: “Cinderella,” and “The Ugly Duckling.” Both had been carefully selected birthday presents. Anna was fond of the delicate illustrations. Every Sunday, when Booker was able, he’d take her to the library and let her pick out one book to take home with her. On very special occasions, they would make an outing of going to the main branch on Dartmouth Street. It was a little like going to church—though God would have known that Booker was no religious man. But he’d clean himself up, shave, and Anna would put on her nice dress, and they would go together on the Tremont Street Subway. They’d go all the way out to the grand, stone building like a church to book learning, and Booker felt nearly respectable. Nearly. He was twenty-three, and his daughter was four, and last night he had come home at some ungodly hour, after having beaten another man until he could not get up again.

He smoked as they walked out on the street, careful of his healing lip. His face probably looked like it oughta scare off most folks, but Anna was sweet as an angel in her blue dress, and after a little walking she tired herself out, and maybe carrying her lent more of an air of civility to him. 

Going to the library always made her eyes open her eyes very wide. The library on Dartmouth was very grand: all polished floors and decorative architecture, inset with the tall shelves of books. She’d sit down right on the cold floor, never mind the dirt that might get on her pretty dress, and shove her nose into the picture books. Booker stood by the low children’s shelf, not really perusing the titles, and trying not to wish for another cigarette. 

He felt someone tugging on his trouser-leg. 

“Daddy, look,” she said, and she was pointing to a neatly printed picture of the Eiffel Tower. The book was one of those educational types that talked, in simple terms of course, about the food and the places and the culture of Paris. 

Anna was four-years-old, and already had dreams bigger than the both of them, and Booker sighed inwardly as he knelt down to say, “Well, that’s an interesting picture, isn’t it?”

“I want to go _there_ , some day,” Anna announced, and then looked up at him, somehow both sweet and expectant. 

Booker rubbed the back of his neck a little with his hand, and then said. “If you’re a very, very good girl, maybe,” he said at last. And if your father works his damn ass off, he didn’t add, but he was thinking it. “I guess the Boston library just isn’t going to do it for you, is it?” 

She shook her head. He picked her up, and she carried the book with her, the flap of the cover knocking him lightly alongside the head. 

“We’ll take this one, then?” he asked her seriously. “Maybe I’ll get you a snack on the way home.” 

Anna giggled, clinging to his neck, and Booker carried her and the book to the librarian’s desk.


End file.
